oreohive activity log

Battles of philosophies in the Linux World - Mid February, 2025

2025-02-16 | oreo

Finally wanting to make the leap on your main desktop or laptop? Craving to give Linux Desktop a spin on that old laptop you have lying around? If you're just looking to get started with Linux on the desktop, you're in the right place.

This article has been renamed from 'Desktop Linux distros overview for beginners - Mid February 2025', in order to better represent its contents. - oreo, 02.04.2025 @~11.39

Introduction

Disambiguation

The term 'GNU+Linux' or the term 'GNU/Linux' is how we can precisely refer to a typical 'Linux OS', an OS built around the Linux kernel with GNU components. We may use the term 'Linux' to refer to succh a 'Linux OS' or family of OSes, not the Linux kernel by itself.

Linux on the desktop

There are lots of ways you can see Linux on the desktop.

There are a collection of Linux 'distributions' that people use on their desktops. These distributions or 'distros' can do things quite a bit differently.

As a beginner, it can be really quite important to pick a distro that properly accommodates beginners and offers a balance of ease-of-use and functionality.

It's arguable that Windows isn't actually that easy to use

It's arguable that the struggles some describe of switching to Linux on the desktop come from the unfamiliarity, rather than any inherent complexity. While some aspects of Linux may be harder to learn about, the gap may not be quite as large as some people are led to believe.

Of course, how hard learning these kinds of things can be depends on the person and is entirely subjective, but I'd argue that in some ways, some tasks on Linux are actually a fair bit easier than they are on Windows.

Why this guide exists

Alas, in this guide, I hope to break down some useful key points about a bunch of popular 'beginner' (and not so 'beginner') distros, some advantages and disadvantages for each, and whether I'd ultimately recommend each for a total beginner.

Of course, this is also rather subjective, which I suppose is why there are so many options. Just because I don't recommend your favourite distro (or even mention it here), this doesn't mean it's bad! If it's right for you, it's right for you. :)

Should it be the case that I haven't mentioned your distro or I might've missed something about one, feel free to let me know on our socials! I'd absolutely love to hear from you!

I hope this guide can provide clarity on some of its key points; in this guide, I don't just want to explain technical advantages and disadvantages, but I want to explain the philosophies of various distros, why they matter, who I think these distros might be for, and, ultimately, why you should care.

The premise of a distro

A distro is kind of like a 'spin' on what desktop Linux should look like. Everyone has a different idea of their 'perfect' desktop, and the flexibility of Linux means that lots of different people can achieve their perfect desktop. Publishers and maintainers of distros, then, follow their own paths to what they feel is 'the perfect desktop'.

So, distros can come with different:

• Package managers
  These help us fetch, search for, install and update our packages; you can think of this like the Linux equivalent of programs.
• 'Repositories' from which these package managers, by default, fetch packages
  Repositories are where we can fetch our packages. They're places on the internet from which we can source, download and update our packages.
• Desktop environments
  Desktop environments are responsible for the look and feel of a Linux desktop.
  - GNOME is used by the most popular desktop distro, Ubuntu, and feels very laid-back and minimal. It gives up a bit of customisability for its own aims to be minimal and clear.
  - KDE gives the user lots of control over their experience, and isn't afraid to show users what options they have over their desktop and layout.
  - LXQt is designed to be super lightweight and minimal, so it can run really, really quickly, even on older systems!
• Default settings (some defaults can be considered more 'sane' than others lol)
  - (For example, the GNOME desktop environment, by default, can hide the maximise and minimise buttons. In the name of ease of use, Ubuntu ships with GNOME configured such that they're back to being visible as normal.)
• Graphical apps ('GUI's) for things like package managers, which you'd otherwise need the terminal to interact with
• Biases towards (preferences to or prioritisations of) types of packages
  - (For example, the company behind Ubuntu made their own type of package called the 'Snap' package, so Ubuntu, by default, can heavily prioritise these over normal packages.)

----------------------

The importance of Wayland

Wayland is a display protocol. It's kind of like the part of the Linux distro that actually displays your desktop environment to you. It's a newer, faster, sleeker, sexier and more secure effective replacement for something older called Xorg (or the 'X Server').

GNOME and KDE use Wayland

• The desktop environments GNOME and KDE, for example, have adopted the newer, more secure, more efficient Wayland display protocol.
• This is how Ubuntu (which ships with GNOME) is able to use Wayland by default.
  

Desktop environments like LXQt do not yet officially use Wayland, at least not by default

• LXQt, as an example and by contrast, lags behind with the older Xorg (or 'X11') display server, and, by extension, so does Lubuntu.
• This means it won't work with things like multi-monitor setups featuring multiple refresh rates, or other newer, more modern phenomenons.
• Unlike with some other DEs, though, lots of work is being done to get LXQt on Wayland, so there is hope.
  

Good support for Wayland is VERY high up on my distro criteria, simply because I'd rather run my monitors at speeds higher than the slowest of the bunch, and Wayland in general tends to make much more efficient, stable, and secure use of more modern hardware. I would, without hesitation, recommend a distro natively supporting Wayland to gamers, for example.

However, smaller desktops like LXQt can be much spottier with Wayland support and can require one to get much more 'into the weeds' to get this to work properly, largely perhaps due to their generally slower development and adoption of new technologies. This is why, to the surprise of no one, a conceptually similar desktop environment named XFCE still lags behind, and does not, to my knowledge, support Wayland at all, in any form.

----------------------

Why are there so many Ubuntus?!?

Ubuntu is probably the most popular distro among beginners, perhaps largely thanks to its amassed popularity. However, it has different 'flavours', like Kubuntu, Lubuntu, Xubuntu, and others.

My first distro was Lubuntu, which is an official 'flavour' of Ubuntu. Flavours are still Ubuntu at their heart, but can have different desktop environments, display servers, pre-installed apps and tools, etc. I guess it's a bit like how some Android phones have vastly different 'software skins'; two phones can both run Android, even the same major version, but provide vastly different user experiences.

Lubuntu, as an example, comes with the LXQt desktop environment instead of GNOME. This is because LXQt tends to be much more resource-efficient on older hardware; Lubuntu aims to be lightweight on system resources.

Flavours are still Ubuntu, they just look and feel different from Ubuntu's standard release, which is fitted with GNOME.

'Official' Ubuntu flavours (the ones endorsed by Canonical, the company that makes Ubuntu) stay true to regular Ubuntu in pushing Canonical's Snaps and holding such biases. However, completely independent, unaffiliated forks of Ubuntu, like Pop!_OS, can do away with these quirks to provide a more neutral, less 'Canonical-ified' experience.

Ubuntu is often picked for starting up new distros because it's deemed a really quite good 'package base'; Ubuntu's repositories for packages are updated frequently and tend to be reliable, and there's so much documentation for Ubuntu out there (due to its popularity) which can also apply to flavours and forks (spinoffs like Pop!_OS).

Linux Mint is an Ubuntu spin-off that has been known to be quite aggressive in removing Snaps wherever it can; its project deems Snaps a threat in their centralised nature, condemning Canonical for having so much control with them. Oh, and they're also relatively slow.

----------------------

Ubuntu icon - By Canonical, the intellectual property rights holder of the Ubuntu trademarks. This website and post are, at the time of writing, in no affiliation with Canonical. This post / article / work is not endorsed or acknowledged in any way by Canonical.

Ubuntu - the 'Windows of Linux'

• Package manager: apt
• Desktop environment: GNOME ('flavours' use different DEs)
• Default display server: Wayland

Ubuntu's default desktop-oriented spin is regarded simply as 'Ubuntu'. Ubuntu Desktop. Clue's in the name; it's Ubuntu, for the desktop. In my experience, this is for both better and worse.

If it were named in consistency with its brethren, I suppose it'd be named 'Ubuntu GNOME' or 'Gubuntu'. Then again, 'man' and 'woman' are named in this fashion, not that I wouldn't whinge about that too.

For the most part, I honestly like Ubuntu Desktop more than many like myself tend to.

I appreciate its take on GNOME.

Having tried stock (default) GNOME, I find it to be too... modest. It hides away options in the window decorations like minimise and maximise (expecting you to use sequences of clicks to invoke this functionality instead), and it tucks away the dock until explicit invocation. I'd've possibly liked this kind of thing a few years back when I would have Windows 'Automatically hide the taskbar', but these days, I don't like this behaviour of stock GNOME.

Ubuntu corrects both of these woes, though, reinstating the Minimise / Maximise buttons on application windows, and keeping the dock static and on-screen most times, à la Windows.

Ubuntu's dock

On a similar vein, Ubuntu's dock is, by default, rather unorthodox.

GNOME, by default, puts its dock to the bottom of the display, again, à la Windows and other desktops. Ubuntu bucks this trend, though, and positions the dock, by default, to the left of the display.

This seems to hark back to Ubuntu's introduction of its own desktop environment back in the early 2010s, dubbed 'Unity'. This desktop of Canonical's own upbringing did the same, but has since been discontinued in the main Ubuntu releases, and replaced with GNOME back in 2017 or so.
Yet, Ubuntu retains the left-mounted dock in its customised version of GNOME that it ships with Ubuntu Desktop today.

My thoughts? I understand the approach. I find it bizzare to actually use, though; it doesn't feel natural to me in some situations, but can do in others.

I can't really fault the logic too much. We have much more horizontal screen real estate than vertical screen space most of the time, in this day and age of laptops and desktop PCs, so having the dock line across the bottom (as is typical) can seem wasteful.

This has appealled to me especially since I started my journey being an incredibly novice developer; in situations where I wish to fit every last legible line of code I can on my display, the vertical screen space that a dock would otherwise eat into feels ever more precious.

Thankfully for those who don't like it, though, Ubuntu has introduced, in more modern releases, the option to reposition the dock back to the bottom of the display, 'where it belongs' for many.

This is how it's positioned for me right now (I'm typing this on my fairly customised Ubuntu install), and I will advise that one does the following with the 'dconf-editor' app, should they choose to relocate the dock:

• Install dconf-editor if you haven't already; it's really helpful.

sudo apt install dconf-editor --no-install-recommends --no-install-suggests -y

The --no-install-recommends and --no-install-suggests arguments are optional; they can help keep things tidy, but --no-install-recommends isn't really for use unless you understand the implications.

The -y argument simply dismisses the 'Do you want to continue [Y/n]?' prompt. Your package manager, apt, shows you this question when you try to make certain changes.

• Navigate to 'org -> gnome -> shell -> extensions -> dash-to-dock'.
• Search for the 'show-apps-at-top' option.
• Enable it.
  

This moves the 'Show Apps' button from the end of the dock to the beginning, which I find to be much more comfortable while using the dock laid down to the bottom.

Oddly enough, I find it more comfortable this way even with the dock mounted to the left.

The default behaviour of placing the 'Show Apps' button to the bottom of a left-mounted dock has this button positioned in the bottom left corner of the screen, à la Windows' traditional Start button positioning. However, I find it much comfier, for whatever reason, to have it to the start of the dock in the top left instead.

A distro dictated by its company

This is where my praise starts to dwindle a little bit.

Ubuntu is 'produced by Canonical and friends'. While Ubuntu is an open-source project, its development is very much overseen and governed by Canonical, a for-profit entity in the UK.

I see Canonical as kind of a 'Dr. Jekyll, Mr. Hyde' sort of entity. Not unlike Microsoft, their company outputs some amazing things, but some pretty crappy ones, too. I'd personally make the argument that few of Canonical's evils over the years have even come close to what I've seen of Microsoft. Additionally, I'd pose the argument that, even despite these flaws, Canonical has done an awful lot more for the open-source community than Microsoft has, or probably will any time soon.

Now, to set the record straight, Canonical has done some nasty stuff.

Over a decade ago now, Canonical introduced functionality into Ubuntu's search system that returned results not only from the user's desktop and system, but also from... Amazon Shopping?

This is not something I'd expect from the Debian Project, a non-profit, 'all-volunteer' organisation that builds the distro Ubuntu is based upon.

However, the commercial power Canonical introduces in funding and supporting Ubuntu does hold some value, too. Canonical's involvement arguably makes Ubuntu and its platforms (and, by extension, Linux, and alternatives to Microsoft platforms) seem much more viable to enterprise organisations that could perceive much value in Canonical's enterprise support options.

Canonical is, at the end of the day, an IT organisation, and it was founded to fund, build commercial support for, and provide related services for, Ubuntu and related projects.

I do understand the 'abused ex' feelings towards these multi-billion dollar corporations, though, after seeing what Microsoft has done to the desktop. I cannot help but wonder if Canonical would behave similarly in such a dominant, arguably monopolistic situation.

Canonical, despite its supposed ethos, has enjoyed its fair share of closed-source, proprietary projects that could be considered more typical of its outwardly for-profit, corporate nature.

But you're not necessarily here to learn about Canonical, or the entities behind these distros; you just wanna learn which is best for you, and why. So, why does this matter, and how could it impact you?

Well, one word. Snaps.

Ubuntu's incessant inclusion and encouragement of 'Snap' packages

There have almost always been about 679,438 novel ways that developers can bundle their apps and packages for desktop Linux. However, in around 2016, Ubuntu decided it'd be a brilliant idea to introduce just one more; developers could now distribute their applications as 'Snap packages', or simply 'Snaps'.

Snaps had been developed by Canonical in around 2014, specifically for their server environments. It's a standard with which software devs building applications can bundle up their packages, dependencies, libraries, and all that stuff into a single Snap package, instead of having these packages rely on (the presence and expected functionality of) system-wide installations (instances) of these dependencies.

The fact that these packages would then have to run in a 'containerised' manner while installed as Snaps did have a clear performance penalty, but it was a good idea, at least conceptually.

However, in 2016, Ubuntu decided it would begin introducing Snaps into Ubuntu Desktop. Much like the functionality facilitated by the already existing (and much more open) Flatpak standard, devs would then be able to package their desktop apps into Snaps, and distribute them as such via Canonical's own repository.

While Flatpak was designed only for GUI desktop apps (graphical apps and visual tools with graphical user interfaces), making it unsuitable for the server environments and deployments Snap was designed for, Flatpak continues to have notable advantages in its openness and decentralisation.

While Flathub has become the 'de-facto' place to download Flatpak packages, anyone can host their own Flatpak repo, from which users can grab Flatpaks. By contrast, Snaps are inherently centralised; only Canonical hosts its own Snap repository, the closed-source Snap Store, innately linking Snaps back to Canonical. This sucks.

"[Some] have objected to the closed-source nature of the Snap Store. Clément Lefèbvre (Linux Mint founder and project leader[81][82]) has written that Snap is biased and has a conflict of interest.
The reasons he cited include it being governed by Canonical and locked to their store, and also that Snap works better on Ubuntu than on other distributions.[83] He later announced that the installing of Snap would be blocked by APT in Linux Mint,[84][85] although a way to disable this restriction would be documented.[86]"

- Wikipedia, 'Snap (software)' '#Reception'

Over the years, Ubuntu has continually implemented and integrated Snaps into its desktop experience, to much critique not only from 'turbo-nerd' hyper-enthusiasts, but also more casual Linux users like myself. Users have complained not only about the fairly forceful, heavy-handed approach at play here, especially given Snap's aforementioned centralised nature, but also about performance issues. For example, it's a common statement that Firefox's pre-installed Snap variant takes considerably longer to open than its previously provisioned, natively installed equivalents.

Would the regular, layperson user notice any difference? In my opinion, possibly not. But I think that makes this play ever-more concerning; if Canonical's goal, then, is to secretly centralise the Linux ecosystem, is that really what we should be advocating for and recommending to newbies?

Side note for a second: this article seems kind of silly. Why is it that the 'Best Linux distribution for beginners overall' and the 'Best easy-to-use Linux distribution for beginners' are two different selections? Is Linux Mint not easy to use? If it isn't, why are you recommending it as the 'Best Linux distribution for beginners overall'?!? What lmao?!?

Conclusion on Ubuntu

Ubuntu, for the most part, is a fairly good distro. At least in my opinion.

Ubuntu is fairly reliable, and it probably won't confuse you after a day or two of getting used to the ins-and-outs of the UI. Is it the most similar to Windows in such regards? Definitely not. But does it follow its own logic in a way that's, in my opinion, fairly easy to get behind, building off of the foundations laid by the GNOME project? I think so.

Do I like Canonical? Meh, not really. I think they've done good, but I think they can come across as pretty two-faced sometimes. Then again, I can't think of too many for-profit corporations or entities that don't, which I suppose displays a greater issue...

And, hey; I suppose we can consider ourselves thankful they're not Oracle. ;)

As for the official Ubuntu flavours? Similar benefits, same problems, different face. Pick your bittersweet poison of semi-benevolent dictatorship, I suppose.

I'm writing this on Ubuntu without any real shame for it.
I do so in a similar manner to how I run this browser tab with Firefox, though that could be changing soon...?

----------------------

Debian icon - By the Debian Project. This work is not endorsed by the Debian Project, and we are not affiliated with or endorsed by the Debian Project in any way.

Debian - 'the centrist's distro'?

Let's say you like the positive qualities of Ubuntu. You like that it's ready to go. You love the apt package manager, and how you can just install things like

sudo apt install thonny --no-install-recommends --no-install-suggests -y

for them to be immediately ready for use.

Hell, you might even just like the little cow it gives you when you run 'apt moo'. Didn't know about that? Now you do. Tell your friends! Make sure to credit me, though. /s

But you just cannot, for the life of you, get behind Ubuntu. It's too corporate. It's too centralised. It's just too... Ubuntu.

It is a pleasure for me to introduce to you... Debian.

As a Brit, I'm keen to consider Debian the Queen Elizabeth of distros, not because it's dead, but because it just keeps on going despite all in its way. Where Ubuntu is just too heavy, just too clunky, just too packed, just too complex, Debian stands tried-and-true, just like good old Bessie, and that's why the Raspberry Pi's default, endorsed OS is based very closely on it.

Ubuntu is based on Debian. However, since Debian is run, developed and maintained by an independent non-profit called the Debian Project, it lacks any Canonical interjections like Snaps. It also, unlike Ubuntu, leaves the desktop environment very much alone, preserving its look and feel and keeping settings to their defaults.

In the Debian installer, if you ask for GNOME, you don't get Ubuntu's GNOME, or Debian's GNOME, you just get GNOME. This largely default configuration of GNOME would thus be more cleanly and purely representative of GNOME's vision.

To my knoweledge, the same goes for KDE, XFCE, LXQt and the myriad of other desktop environments Debian helpfully provides as installation options in its internet-connected installer, though GNOME is selected by Debian's installer by default.

So, it's effectively pretty much Ubuntu, but without Canonical's corporate shenanigans...? What could go wrong? Well... we'll get there.

A rock-solid base. No, seriously.

Did I say earlier that Ubuntu is 'fairly reliable'? Well, in such regards, it's got little on Debian.

Debian is a brick.

Ubuntu gets lots of its positive and desirable qualities from Debian, the distro upon which it is based.

To say I've had zero issues with Ubuntu would be a lie; I usually choke them down to my own tweaks and 'customisations', many of which Ubuntu admittedly didn't seem to like very much at all, but many of which I'd defend on the grounds that if the distro demands hacky workarounds, it should be prepared for them.

Suggesting Debian is unstable would be like arguing that frogs can't swim; most frogs lay their eggs in water, so need to. Stability is fairly warranted when an OS is being deployed in the kinds of industrial settings Debian can find itself in.

Debian's general stability and dependability (or, more accurately, the means through which it largely accomplishes this) has some knock-on effects for us home users, though, for both better and worse.

So, how's it done?

Debian's repositories

Well, Debian pulls its packages with apt, its own package manager, but does so from its own repositories. Debian's repositories are heavily monitored and vetted, with packages hosted on them for Debian users being tested vigorously for interoperability, stability, reliability, consistency and dependability.

Most mainstream distros do this; this practice isn't anything special. Ubuntu hosts its own repositories for its users to install packages from. The difference is the vigour with which the Debian community insists packages are tested before being released onto these repos for Debian users to engage with and download.

'Great!', you may think. 'Reliable packages and apps I can pretty much always count on working as I'd expect!' Not so fast.

Debian ships significantly older packages

This long process of endurance all these packages must undergo before being released onto Debian's official repos means that all packages that end up there are late. Like, really late. Often years late.

This means that, for example, while all your Ubuntu friends will be enjoying the new KDE Plasma 6.2, you'll be stuck on some basically pre-historic version, like 5.27.5 or something, which is apparently 'full of bugs' anyway...?

Either way, trust me, Plasma 6 is so much better. And this is far from the only instance in which Debian users get left painstakingly late to such parties.

Oh, and Arch users will be laughing at you both. They're on KDE Plasma 72,489 or whatever.

'B-but... Debian Unstable?!? How's that?!?'

Of course, if you don't mind having older packages, then all power to you! But if you do, Debian has other cards up its sleeve; 'Debian Unstable' (Debian 'Sid').

Debian Testing is basically Debian, except the packages are released to the repos a little more quickly. Debian Unstable is like Debian Testing, but... well, tending to be even more fresh, and even more unstable.

Users report that either of Debian's 'unstable' options shouldn't be used unless one is really intending to contribute to the Debian project by means of actually testing pre-release, buggy packages and half-baked installs, especially since the packages on these versions of Debian don't tend to be much fresher anyway, still looking super stale next to Ubuntu's offerings.

However, many will still use Debian Unstable ('Sid') as a kind of 'rolling release' of Debian, through which they can access more up-to-date software while still attaining a pure Debian experience.

"The freeze period around new releases is like 6 months ever[y] 2-2.5 years, and in that period next to nothing happens on testing, especially not in terms of new feature-releases."

Here's a seemingly pretty solid explanation as to the rationale behind freezing Debian Unstable as well as Debian Testing, despite the fact that Debian Unstable builds are never to be released as main Debian builds, but the Debian Testing builds are to lead to a main Debian release.

Either way, I think the takeaway here is simply that if you want up-to-date packages, Debian just might not be for you. And that's okay; that's the beauty of Linux on the desktop!

It's your choice what such things you may or may not want, and which of these characteristics you may or may not subscribe to.

Pure Debian isn't really for the kitchen table tinkerer - Conclusion on Debian

I think all of this solidifies a larger point, though. While Debian does present itself as 'The Universal Operating System', which it may live up to in its functionality and structure, that doesn't necessarily mean it is (or has to be) for everyone. If it were, different distributions probably wouldn't exist!

I think Debian is designed for someone who just does not really care that much.

I think Debian is the distro for the individual who honestly probably would take reliability and stability, even if it meant sacrificing having the newest, shiniest, sparkliest packages.

Ubuntu comes with optimisations, tweaks, and changes here and there to help keep your system performant and help keep things accessible and intuitive. Debian just gives you GNOME and is, by comparison, super lean, leaving these kinds of choices to you.

I, myself, tend to prefer Ubuntu on the desktop to Debian's more vanilla tendencies, but many swear by Debian and its apparent complete, non-profit neutrality. Hell, I think the Toy Story character version names might be just about the most opinionated thing about it.

----------------------

Arch Linux icon - By Judd Vinet, Aaron Griffin and Levente Polyák - Own work using: https://sources.archlinux.org/other/artwork/archlinux-artwork-1.6.tar.gz, GPL, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=131888240

Attribution as per entry on the Wikimedia Commons.

Arch - The 'Good Luck' distro

Let's face it, though. If you're wanting to be on the true, bleeding edge, Ubuntu probably isn't for you either. Let's take it up a notch. Turn things up to eleven, if you will.

Deemed the endgame of Linux distros by many (including a faithful community that will graciously swing a fat wiki entry in your face upon virtually any inquiry), Arch Linux is what happens when you take a pretty opposite approach.

Read The F**king Manual

There's no real 'installer' per se. Arch hands you the tools you need, and little more.

If Ubuntu gives you a ready-built car with all the controls, knobs and gears you could need, and Debian gives you a functional, sleek but skeletal shell from which you're to configure these controls yourself, Arch gives you an engine, a few boxes of parts, and a spanner.

Then, it nods and leaves, explaining 'Check the wiki if you need anything'.

This approach is valued by many for the customisation and flexibility it offers. Much like Debian, it provides the user with a blank canvas to build upon.

However, with Debian, this kind of 'building upon' could just mean changing some settings here or there, installing a few GNOME extensions, et cetera. In the Debian installer, you're given options like which desktop environment you want pre-installing, and whether you'd like to opt out of installing 'Standard system utilities'.

Arch takes this to an extreme, arguably much more fulfiling of such a promise. You can cut and prune your little (or huge!) Arch install to be pretty much just the way you like it, no questions asked. While this is theoretically true of just about any Linux distro, the difference with Arch is that there are no arbitrary limitations or workarounds put in place; you can just do it.

Arch is tougher for beginners

That is, providing you have not just the technical ability, but the familiarity with Linux and Linux systems. Arch is not made to cater for beginners.

'No graphical installer experience? Ridiculous in this day and age!' you may cry. But Arch isn't built for those who would even really like one.

Arch is for those who want to be the installer.

Some may argue that installing Arch is honestly quite a bit easier than I'm making it out to be, and in many respects, I'd probably agree!
A couple of years or so ago, I did indeed install Arch (I know, thank you, thank you, save the clapping for later, though), and, as someone who's fairly used to reading wikis like the Arch one, it was honestly... fine!
However, I did end up needing to leverage experiences and recollections I had gathered in my times before this using, tinkering with and messing with Linux systems, and this guide is really for people who don't have such experiences.

So, take it from me; you should probably start somewhere else. I don't know anyone who's built a computer without seeing a prebuilt desktop or laptop in their life, but if you do, they're probably braver than me.

The strong community support

Despite my admittedly pretty unpleasant interactions with one or two (seemingly really quite elitist) individuals in the past, it must be said that the community strength behind Arch Linux is virtually undeniable.

Don't get me wrong, either; I don't think a few bad nuggets here and there constitutes a bad community. I've seen on wikis and forums a virtually countless number of Arch community members providing legitimately helpful, careful solutions to issues I've encountered and questions I've held. In my mind, I shan't let a noisy minority rowdy with elitism stain a wider community that, at large, really does probably just want to do the right thing.

With all of that being said, though, Arch holds a pretty compelling advantage over anything Debian-based you'll find.

Having a community of people wanting to be on the bleeding edge and craving the new, the fresh, the unrestricted, the liberation, means having really new, really fresh packages.

This, honestly, is great, and it is a huge plus for tech-savvy people who really do want to get into the weeds with Linux and use it as a daily driver, but don't really fancy waiting around for package maintainers.

The AUR

None of this is to mention the 'Arch User Repository', a community-driven repository for all Arch and Arch-based Linux distributions.

This Arch User Repository (often called the 'AUR') allows an Arch user to have their system automatically build a package of its own from its source code (with a tool called makepkg, which does exactly what it sounds like), then install it with pacman (the Arch equivalent of apt) as if it were a package they had grabbed from the internet normally.

This can happen since Arch systems can follow community-built scripts hosted on the AUR that tell Arch how to build a package from source, then install it properly, without the user really having to do a thing. How f**king cool is that?!?

My conclusion on Arch

If you're a beginner, should you start with Arch Linux?
No.

I love Arch Linux. I don't use it as much as such a statement may insinuate, but I love that it exists for those who do.

----------------------

Manjaro icon

Manjaro - The 'Confused' Distro

Not everyone who is tech-savvy and wants to 'get into the weeds' as I said earlier wants to undergo the arguable hardships of installing Arch as it comes, though. Surely, there's a middle ground, right? What if we had a distro that was Arch-based, but wasn't so... manual to install, configure and get set up with?

Well, turns out, there are a plethora of Arch distributions that aim to fit exactly into such gaps! Manjaro Linux is just one of them, and from my understanding, it's probably the most popular of the bunch.

If Ubuntu is the Windows of Linux, like mentioned earlier, than Manjaro is probably the Ubuntu of Arch. That said, though, I'd argue it strays away from this in a myriad of key ways, perhaps rendering it undeserving of its spot as the most popular of Arch-based distributions aiming to bring the power and flexibility of Arch to the masses as a true option to sit next to Ubuntu and its plethora of beginner-friendly spin-offs. We'll get there, though.

Manjaro's installer

Manjaro, from what I remember and from what I can find, uses the Calamares installer; this is a graphical installer that lends itself much to Ubuntu's. Calamares is used on a variety of other distros, too, like NixOS, KDE neon, Kubuntu, Lubuntu and EndeavourOS, just to name a few.

Calamares is an installer just like any other; it's the thing that gets a distro from an ISO image onto a computer's disk.

This is especially notable because, as mentioned earlier, Arch by itself doesn't really have one! Manjaro, by contrast, comes with a full live environment and graphical installer, just like Ubuntu and a lot of the other 'beginner-friendly' distributions.

This means no typing in special commands, just click, click, click, select a bunch of options, type in your username and password, among other things, wait a bit, and boom! A fresh, clean Manjaro install, ready to flex its Arch goodness.

Wait, though. That 'goodness' is... nuanced, to say the least.

Manjaro's quirks - Conclusion on Manjaro

Manjaro is a peculiar distro.

Remember how I said earlier on that it's kind of like the Ubuntu of the Arch world? Well, I'd argue it's met with considerably more hostility from the likes of the Arch community than Ubuntu is, which is a higher bar than you could think, and arguably reasonably so.

Ubuntu, being the 'gateway drug', so to speak, for many newcomers, has one thing going for it, at least to a degree; reliability and dependability. Where Ubuntu achieves stability thanks to its Debian base and abundant maintenance, Manjaro cannot help but subject itself (and, by extension, its user base) to apparent blunder after blunder in terms of quality control.

I've actually used Manjaro quite a bit in my time! I've never properly daily driven it for too long (more than some short periods), but my last experience might've been the one where I ended up installing an alternative distro that very same day when I believe I was having some seemingly inexplicable issue with dual-booting it with Windows.

Skill issue? Maybe.

This was on the 27th of Janaury 2022, and while my optimistic mind likes to imagine quite a bit could've changed since then, I don't really see Manjaro's reception as 'the buggy Arch distro with stability issues' shifting at all.

Am I sure I'd have gotten this problem solved had I posted to a forum or two and done some research? Yes, absolutely. However, given the issues with stability and reliability I already knew Manjaro to be notorious for, I decided not to bother, and to move on.

Manjaro's officially proposed temporary solution to the issues caused when they let their SSL certificates expire was for users to simply rewind the time on their systems. Yep. About a decade ago, the distro suggested users get around it by changing their system clocks. This has since happened again.

----------------------

EndeavourOS icon - https://endeavouros.com/media-images

EndeavourOS

Move on to where, though...?

This is where I can truly recommend a tinkerer's distro with starry eyes and say 'This one, right here. This... this might be the one!!!'

EndeavourOS is a relatively recent distro that arrived only in the middle of 2019, over a decade and a half after the birth of the faithful Arch system it's based upon.

EndeavourOS is arguably a little bit of a spiritual successor to a project called Antergos Linux, another Arch-based distro that came before it. In May 2019, Antergos' developers abruptly announced that development on the project would come to a close.

EndeavourOS calls itself a 'terminal-centric' distro: what this means for us

The plan with EndeavourOS was to create a distro close to Arch Linux with the convenience of a graphical installer, while leaving graphical interfaces for the Pacman package manager out, encouraging use of the terminal instead.

While some would say this would be points taken away from EndeavourOS in terms of ease-of-use for beginners, I'd make the argument that if a user wants a graphical interface for managing packages, they could always easily install something like Pamac themself.

The fact that Manjaro comes with Pamac but Endeavour omits such a graphical tool is a difference I feel is representative of a difference in ethos. Endeavour doesn't pitch itself a 'beginner' distro, nor does not pitch itself as a distro catering to those who are 'new to Linux' or 'new to Arch'.
Instead, I'd argue it's aimed towards inquisitive, adventurous users wishing to embark on an Arch 'endeavour' of their own without needing to dive straight into the deep end.

I'd say it accomplishes this in spades.

Flexibility - The very essence of picking and choosing

Remember how Debian lets you choose your desktop environment in its installer?

EndeavourOS, in terms of its customisation options, puts this flexibility to shame.

Not only does it let you choose your desktop environment, but it also lets you select certain system tools (both ones recommended for general use and ones tailored to Endeavour) and even individual packages and parts of your desktop environment. It lets you choose what you want and don't want, and tailor your system on a package-by-package basis.

Want the KDE desktop environment, but don't want KDE Connect, the mobile phone companion application it can come with? Sure.
Want to remove the entire KDE productivity / editing suite while you're at it? No problem.
Want to easily select a different bootloader? EndeavourOS has you covered on that front earlier on in the installer, too; it defaults to a bootloader called systemd-boot, though, and for good reason.

Of course, you could manually go and uninstall all this stuff later, but it's nice to not have to wait for things to install when you don't want them anyway, just to go to the effort of uninstalling the crap you didn't ask for.

I remember installing KDE with Debian's installer on an older system and remembering just how 'full' KDE could feel when it comes with all its stuff. Ew.

I kind of love Endeavour's approach to customisation

Seriously, though. Installing EndeavourOS legitimately feels like picking and customising a McDonald's order, except with no ads or promotional guff in my face.

The closest thing could've been the suggestion in the rotating installer slideshow to donate to a non-profit, the inclusion of which in Endeavour's installer I found to be actually quite sweet in its gratitude for their work in supporting Endeavour's growth.

Either way, my time on Endeavour has been overall really quite positive; I've actually intended on switching back to it very shortly, outfitted in KDE now I'm finally starting to grow a little tired of GNOME on my desktop setup again. :'))

I appreciate EndeavourOS's backing, development and contributions by real people, not corporations, and I appreciate the project's dedication to its community.
To see that the Arm version of EndeavourOS is being worked on again (after the developer had stepped back due to a temporary waft of burnout) legitimately brought me feelings of happiness.

Conclusion on Endeavour

Overall, while I wouldn't necessarily recommend EndeavourOS to a total Linux beginner, I'd love to recommend Endeavour for someone who might've dabbled a bit into Linux in the past, or someone tech-savvy looking to explore and gain a deeper familiarity with these systems.

It's full of nice, handy touches, like quick post-install buttons for things like updating the system, changing your wallpaper, and other such goodies.

The installer helpfully explains some things to people who might be looking to get 'into the weeds', but maybe haven't quite descended too deeply quite yet. It makes for a great 'stopgap' in this regard, providing armbands while one can comfortably learn to swim in a safe environment that doesn't totally deprive them of tools and guidance.

Looking to foster a deeper, more intimate love for Linux? You just might've found your distro. :)

----------------------

By System76 - Photosubmission, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=61237456

Attribution as per entry on the Wikimedia Commons.

IT'S PUBLIC DOMAIN BROSKIIS!!!!!!!!

Pop!_OS

What if all of that sounds good, but you'd still just rather someone pick all those options for you? What if you liked the idea of Ubuntu, but wanted something just a bit more... neutral?

Now, if there's a distro I've historically considered my 'home distro', it's most definitely Pop!_OS. It's the distribution I've got the most experience daily driving, and for good reason. While it sits in a bit of a divide right now, which we'll get to later, I've historically considered it 'basically just Ubuntu but ameliorated', even if these days, I'd consider such a statement quite unfairly dismissive of the tireless work the System76 team and Pop's contributors have done to truly make Pop!_OS something special for us all.

Much like the Ubuntu system upon which it is based, Pop!_OS is backed by a corporation of its own, System76.

System76, though, seems to much more clearly display a dedication (practically a devotion) to open-source. Hell, its keyboard is open source in all ways reasonable, as are its chassis designs for its desktop computers and the like. How cool is that?!?

System76 claims to have built Pop!_OS 'for STEM and creative professionals who use their computer as a tool to discover and create'. I don't think I'm quite smart enough to fit into such words, but if you think so, System76, that's great.

Pop!_OS comes from a divergence; one from Ubuntu and GNOME

Because, as I say, Pop!_OS has been the distro to feel most 'me' for all this time, at least putting aside my gripes with GNOME, though Pop has always tended to deal with those in its own ways (this is also very significant, and yes, we will get to this later!).

Since its very inception, Pop!_OS for years had beared such a resemblance to Ubuntu Desktop, what with its Ubuntu base and similar inclusion of GNOME, that many accused it of simply being a 'skinned Ubuntu'. Pop!_OS, though, continued to stray away from this similarity, becoming further and further bespoke not only from Ubuntu, but also the vision of its desktop environment, GNOME.

System76 introduced its own extensions to customise and tweak GNOME to its liking; these implemented the likes of a 'tiling window manager' (in which windows would be automatically placed and organised across the display without the user needing to lift a finger or use their mouse to drag them around). These tweaks supplemental to the Pop!_OS experience were in addition to the under-the-hood performance and efficiency tweaks System76 and contributors had already conducted on Pop.

However, as System76 continued to customise and displace GNOME, it became increasingly clear that System76 intendeed to pursue its very own vision of what a desktop should be, what a desktop should look like, and, ultimately, how a desktop should behave.

The COSMIC desktop environment

Enter COSMIC.

Just as System76 had strayed away from shipping Ubuntu on its systems, making way for its own distribution, the firm was now keen to begin development of its very own desktop environment.

COSMIC is not a fork of GNOME, though it is said to be 'inspired' by GNOME. The COSMIC desktop is being written from the ground up in Rust. Yup.

If you're unfamiliar, Rust is basically an absolute God of a language. Though it's considered by many to be a 'b**ch to write', it's modern, it's sleek, it's fast (exceptionally fast) and it's safe. It's so fast, in fact, that it's been the only language outside of the C family to really be properly considered for the Linux kernel itself. C is fast, yes, but it's old, so it's not really safe. At all.

Without delving into the technicalities of Rust here - you came here to learn about Linux distros, not to garner a PhD in computer science and learn a bloody programming language - the important part is that Rust is really efficient, and this spells well for COSMIC's performance and efficiency in dealing with system resources.

Woes surrounding the likes of resource allocation and efficiency have been ones held by critiques of GNOME for years and years. While GNOME may have come quite a long way, COSMIC would likely suffer no such critiques on any remotely modern hardware, full stop.

What this means for Pop

What does all this mean for Pop, though?

Well, for a very long while there (around two years!), Pop!_OS was a bit... stationary. Trust me, I was there.

Almost every day I checked the website and... nothing new releases-wise. Okay, maybe that's a bit of exaggeration; while I may not have checked pop.system76.com almost ever single day, I was indeed feeling a little mournful in Pop!_OS's disappearance.

You see, while COSMIC was under heavy development, Pop!_OS's regular maintenance and development had to slow down quite a bit. As such, we were stuck on 22.04 LTS, and, in terms of stable releases, we still are.

However, towards the middle of last year (2024), we were graced with the first Pop!_OS alpha builds outfitted with the COSMIC desktop environment! The COSMIC desktop was finally alive and ready for the community to see. Well, sort of.

This debut was by no means free from rough edges; it was a first alpha, after all, and it showed.

However, as of the Alpha 4 (I believe) I tried, I am pleased to report that lots of issues are indeed getting ironed out, and fast. The only reason why I'm not using it on my laptop is because it wouldn't want to properly connect to / authenticate with my school's Wi-Fi network, presumably since it's protected by a captive portal.

I can't speak as to whether this particular issue is fixed now in the latest Alpha builds, but as soon as I hear it is, the writing may be on the wall for my use of Ubuntu on that system.

The current 'Pop divide' - Conclusion on Pop

In my opinion, though, this puts end users like you and I in a bit of a weird position, though, pretty much entirely hence my recent selections of Ubuntu in place of where Pop may have usually been my default, go-to distro to install on my systems.

We can either sit on the very bleeding edge, cut by the sharp edges (presumably hence 'bleeding', but who am I to say, I'm not an etymologist) of the COSMIC alphas, or we can settle for the most recent Pop!_OS stable builds, being of an Ubuntu 22.04 LTS base, dating back to around April 2022.

Crusty, old packages, or the baking hot tantalisation of software having just come fresh out of the oven? The old stuff is starting to smell a little off, even if it functionally is possibly still okay. This makes the fresh stuff seem extra tasty, but if we want to try it, we must risk burning our hands. What is one to do?

Get in touch with me if you have any ideas; I might add your suggestion(s) to this post if I think they're cool!

----------------------

Conclusion

I've introduced quite a few distros here.

I might've left out some I was initially thinking about talking about (namely including Linux Mint and Zorin OS, the latter of which I've found historically more underwhelming than some, who can swear by it). However, the bottom line is that these are largely all just Ubuntu-based distros with their own takes, desktop environment customisations, and spins on what they each think a desktop ultimately should be.

Which one aligns best with what you feel your desktop ought to be? I think only you can really answer that.

While I haven't worked out any kind of comments system for this place yet (not that I particularly plan to, but if there's enough demand I guess I might lol?), feel free to fire your suggestions at me on our socials. I'd love to hear from you. :))

What distro do you use? Do you swear by it, or use it because it just works and gets out of your way?

Or are you still within the depths of Windows, waiting until the day comes upon which you finally get sick and tired of seeing yet another Copilot AI ad? There's no shame in it; as I mentioned, I still dual-boot!

I know this write-up could seem really quite overwhelming - I understand this, especially if you don't follow its thread and don't read all the way through - so please feel free and absolutely encouraged to hit me up if you have any questions at all; I'm far from an expert, but I'd be more than happy to try and help you. :))

That's it for now! See you soon!

- oreo